Rambling for Kirwan Uniting Church Keep in Touch newsletter 14 June 2020

This has been a sensory week for me. The sense of sight on Monday at Specsavers, of taste on Tuesday at the dentist, and of hearing on Wednesday at my ENT surgeon.  Some of you know the story about sight overlapping with sound at Specsavers. Sitting in a (socially-distanced) waiting area, a young girl came out of her office and told me what I already knew, “Your hearing aid is whistling”. “Yes”, I said, “it’s badly fitting, it’s either whistle or nothing”. “I can fix that”, she replied, and she did. She lengthened the tube between the in-ear bit and the behind-the-ear bit, bent it into a different shape, and hey presto, no whistling. The dentist came up with what dentists are good at, a treatment plan which will cost more than my car’s worth unless BUPA come to the party. And the ENT surgeon offered the quote of the week: “You’re young” 😊
More above-the-neck stuff on Thursday, a haircut, and to round the week off, an MRI and CT on Friday to show the cochlear surgeon where my skull is.

 

When it comes to comprehending our great God, our senses aren’t up to the task.

Isaiah 64:

Since ancient times no one has heard,

no ear has perceived,

no eye has seen any God besides you,

who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

 

St Paul develops this in First Corinthians 2:

However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,

what no ear has heard,

and what no human mind has conceived”—

the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

 

Jesus, speaking to his disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit, tells them in a great Trinitarian passage (John 16) “He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

 

Psalm 8 and Psalm 19, seeing God’s handiwork in the heavenly bodies. We “see” those stars with our eyes, but seeing God at work in flinging them into space is by the eye of faith, a gift of the Spirit. So if your eyes are not quite so sharp as they were, and your hearing aid whistles – close your eyes and ears to the clamorous world, and let the Spirit show you what God has prepared for those who love him.

 

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